KING BOOZY.
The next morning, while Sergeant Hardy was standing near the main
entrance to the Fens on Commonwealth Avenue, he was glad to see in the
distance the figures of the two nurses and their two charges.
Eugene, holding himself as straight as a dart, was a little in advance
of the others; while Virgie frisked around him, first on one side and
then on the other, and occasionally paused to throw back a few words to
the nurses, whose heads were nodding in busy conversation.
The sergeant was glad to see that Eugene looked happier than he had
done the day before. Indeed, he was comparatively cheerful this
morning; and when he got near the sergeant, his cap came off his head
in a twinkling, and he said gayly, “Good-morning, sir.”
“Bong zhoor, musso,” said the sergeant, in rather indifferent French.
“You look as pleased as if you’d got a freedom suit.”
Eugene’s curiosity was piqued. “Will you explain, sir?” he said
prettily. “You mention a phrase that I have never met before.”
“Well,” said the sergeant, planting himself in the middle of the
pavement, while the nurses and the children stood round him in
respectful attention, “long ago, when I was a young man, I lived in the
country. Every lad, when he was twenty-one, used to get a suit of new
clothes, a dress-suit and a tall hat, which he called a freedom suit.
This suit was kept for special occasions, like going to church, and
funerals, and weddings, and making calls on our lady friends. I can
just see the young fellows riding in from the farms on horseback, proud
as Punch, with their coat-tails tucked in their pockets to keep them
clean.”
“How droll!” said Eugene.
“How droll!” little Virgie repeated after him.
“I will walk with you, sir,” said the boy, when the sergeant turned in
the direction of the park. “And I will walk wif you,” lisped Virgie to
Eugene, attempting to take his hand.
“Not so,” he said decidedly; and he held both hands before him.
“It might occur to you to seize these flowers which I am carrying,
especially as they are for the emperor.”
The sergeant’s eyes wandered curiously from the tiny bunch of violets
to the plain, almost threadbare, suit of clothes that the boy wore.
Something told him that Eugene’s scanty savings were heroically devoted
to perpetuating the memory of his beloved emperor.
“Are you going to lay those before John Boyle O’Reilly,” he asked.
Eugene bowed gravely.
“Speaking of monuments, there is one I admire,” said the sergeant,
jerking a thumb over his shoulder; “and I often think it shows that a
woman knows better how to dress a man than a man does.”
“You have reason,” said Eugene courteously; though he did not
understand in the least what the sergeant meant, and the sergeant knew
he did not.
“Look at it,” said the man to his young companion; and then they both
turned around.
Against the blue sky rose alert and graceful the bronze figure of Leif
Ericsson, the Norse discoverer of America. One hand he held to his
forehead. He was peering forward, as if his eager eyes were anxious to
discover the wonders of the new world.
“Yes,” said the sergeant, “it is a woman that made that, and to my
mind she made a man. I get tired of these heroes in petticoats, sitting
round on monuments. I never saw a man in petticoats in my life, except
a Christian brother; yet when any one of our famous men is going to be
put up in stone for us to admire, the sculptor swaddles him round like
a baby in long clothes; though Boston isn’t as bad in this respect as
some of our cities.”
“It is a thousand pities,” said Eugene absently.
“Why don’t you leave those flowers with Leif?” asked the sergeant
jokingly.
[Illustration: “LET ME PUT THEM UP FOR YOU,” SAID THE SERGEANT.]
Eugene immediately awaked out of his revery. “No, no,” he said; and
he hurried on with a disturbed face, and scarcely spoke until they
reached the bronze monument.
“Let me put them up for you,” said the sergeant, when Eugene stood on
tiptoe, and tried to toss his violets near O’Reilly’s face.
The boy gave them up, and anxiously watched him as he deposited them on
the stone ledge on which the bust rested.
“I wish O’Reilly could see you,” said the sergeant. “Perhaps he
does. He was a patriot, and I guess he would approve of your devotion to
your country.”
Eugene stood gazing up in rapt attention until Virgie and the two
nurses arrived; then he sighed, and brought his eyes to the earth again.
“I fought you’d runned away and hid yoursef,” said little Virgie,
shaking her curls and dancing up to Eugene. “Come play wif me; I’m all
lonesome.”
Eugene was about yielding passively to her request, when he caught
sight of a little head peering at him from the underbrush near by.
“Ah, Jacobin!” he said calmly, as he stooped and seized a stone,
“away with thee.”
The stone was not thrown; for the sergeant stepped forward, and seized
him by the shoulder. “What do you see, boy?” he asked.
“A cat,” replied Eugene.
The sergeant retained his hold of Eugene, and sat him down on the stone
seat. “Boy,” he said firmly, “do you stone cats?”
“Always,” returned Eugene. “The reptiles!”
“Why do you do it?”
“Possibly,” said the lad with slight sarcasm, “you would also stone
them if you lived where we do. At night my grandfather retires worn out
by his exertions during the day. He sleeps; then he springs from his
bed, awakened by a cry for help from a drowning child. It is a cat! He
becomes angry; he lifts the window, and throws a morsel of coal at the
supposed drowning one. He again retires. He again sleeps. This time a
woman shrieks from a burning house. He again hurls himself from the
bed. Once more it is but a cat. He throws two morsels of coal, and
ensconces himself between the blankets. In succession he is aroused by
murderers, by burglars, by a chorus of men’s voices, by a famous _prima
donna_; and all is produced by those wretches of cats. He says that
he has travelled in many lands, and that he has heard the voices of
many cats; but for maliciousness and range of tones these Boston cats
eclipse all others.”
“I wonder what your grandfather takes for supper,” said the sergeant
sternly. “A man that runs down cats and women and priests ain’t fit to
live, in my estimation.”
Eugene promptly raised a little cane that he carried under his arm, and
struck the sergeant a smart blow across his legs.
The sergeant in his amazement released his hold of Eugene’s shoulder;
and his nurse, stepping forward with a dismayed face, interposed
herself between the angry lad and his powerful opponent, and said,
“Run, Master Eugene, run.”
“I will not run,” said the boy haughtily. “You, sir,” he went on,
addressing the sergeant, “shall give me satisfaction for this some day.
I challenge you to fight a duel with me.”
All the annoyance died out of the sergeant’s face. “You young
swaggerer,” he said with a short laugh, “you’ve got a hard row to
hoe in this life. I’m sorry for you; but I guess I’d no business to
run down your grandfather. Come over here now; I want to show you
something. You come too,” he added, addressing the nurses and little
Virgie, who had timidly retreated when Eugene began to get angry.
Eugene somewhat sulkily accepted his apology, and they all followed
him; while the sergeant talked to them over his shoulder, and led the
way to a path near the Boylston-street bridge.
“Speaking of cats,” he said, “I want to introduce you to one who is a
prince, or rather a king, among them, and perhaps you won’t have quite
such a low opinion of the gentry. Stoop your heads now; the shrubbery
is pretty dense here.”
The two nurses and the children gazed admiringly before them. They were
facing a most snug retreat.
“And sure, a fox might be happy there, if it wasn’t for the highway
near by,” said Bridget enthusiastically, “And what’s the baste that
lives in this little wild wood home, officer?”
The sergeant was holding back some branches so that they might see more
plainly a tiny wooden kennel heaped high with dead leaves.
“It’s a king that lives here,” he said; and he lifted toward his
auditors his face that was red from stooping over the kennel.
“You didn’t know, French boy,” and he addressed Eugene, “that
there was a sovereign over all this park land that rules as absolutely
as your emperor did.”
“Is it possible that you speak of a cat?” said the boy contemptuously.
“Of nothing more nor less, of King Boozy, monarch of this park, because
he has got character enough to rule over the other twenty cats that
live here.”
Little Virgie was charmed. Before Eugene could reply, she dropped on
her hands and knees, and crawled in beside the sergeant. “Oh, the
little sweet housie!” she cried, patting the tiny dwelling with both
hands. “Who made it, mister? does the pussy sleep in it?”
“Yes, little one,” said the sergeant. “A gentleman connected with one
of the Boston theatres had this kennel made for the king of the park,
who always sleeps in it. His chum occupies that barrel over there.”
“And is it another cat that is his chum?” asked Bridget.
“Yes,” replied the sergeant. “There is only one cat in the park that
the king will have to live with him; and that is his chum, Squirrel,
and he has to mind his _p’s_ and _q’s_, I tell you, or Boozy would put
him out. What do you think of this for a cat’s home, young sir?” and he
addressed Eugene.
The boy backed out from the underbrush, slightly curling his lip as
he did so. “I do not admire the name of the animal,” he said coldly;
“and why take all that trouble for a cat?”
The sergeant mopped his perspiring face with his handkerchief. “I will
talk to you a little about the king,” he said, “and then perhaps you
will see.”
The path upon which they had entered ran along by the low stone parapet
of the Boylston-street bridge. The sergeant took his station against
the parapet, while his listeners stood grouped about him in the mild
sunshine.
“I believe,” said the sergeant, pointing up to the bright blue sky
above them, “in an almighty Ruler of the universe that creates all
things,—men and women and horses and dogs and cats.”
“And so do I,” murmured Bridget, crossing herself. “Praise be to his
holy name.”
“And I believe,” continued the sergeant, “that this almighty Ruler
does not despise anything that he has made—not even a cat.”
Eugene smiled a little ironically, but said nothing.
“Four years ago,” went on the sergeant, “I was on duty in this park
early one fine summer morning. Down there near Commonwealth Avenue I
saw a black-and-white cat coming leisurely toward me. Every few steps
he took he would look over his shoulder in the direction of the houses,
then he would walk toward the park again. I have always been fond of
cats; so I said ‘Good-morning’ to him as polite as you please.
‘Meow,’ he said; and he looked pitifully up at me. ‘What’s the
matter?’ I asked. ‘Are you going to the park to catch a mouse for
yourself this fine morning?’ ‘Meow, meow,’ he said; and he meant,
‘No, no,’ just as plain as a creature could say it. Then he turned,
and walked back in the direction he had come, looking over his shoulder,
and begging me to follow as plain as possible. I thought I would go, for
I knew something was wrong; and do you know that cat took me as straight
as a child would have done down to a fine shut-up house. I suspected
what was the matter; however, I rang the bell of the next house, and
inquired.”
“They had gone away and left the cat, hadn’t they?” interjected
Eugene’s nurse.
“Yes,” said the sergeant grimly. “That’s the figure of it. Mrs.
Grandlady, whose name you might know if I mentioned it, had taken
herself and her dear children and her dear horses to the country;
but the dear cat was left to shift for himself. I was sorry for the
creature. He went up on the front steps. He went up on the back ones.
He listened, he pricked up his ears. He stared at me as if to say, ‘Do
you really think they have left me?’ And when I left him he cried. For
three weeks that cat hung about the house listening for some one to
come back. I got the lady’s address, and wrote to her, but she didn’t
answer; then I reasoned with the cat, and said, ‘You had better come up
to the park.’ Finally he came. I never saw such a human-like creature.
He’d never been ill-used, and he could not seem to understand that any
one would hurt him. He has got over that now all right. Dogs chase him,
and boys stone him, and he’s a different cat. He is shy of strangers,
and I don’t think he would go back to his old mistress if she came for
him.”
“Isn’t he a good pussy now?” asked Virgie.
“Oh, yes!” said the sergeant, smiling; “he is good, but he is a
little sharper than he used to be. He has got to know the world; and he
believes that might is right, and he lords it over the other cats in
the park. He thinks every one is down on him but me. He has lost faith
in human nature—you will understand that when you get to be a big
girl.”
“I would like to see that pussy,” said Virgie wistfully.
“I’ll call him up,” said the sergeant, “if your nurses will stand
back. He hates women.”
“Och, the old rascal!” said Bridget wrathfully.
“You see, it’s this way,” and the sergeant spoke in an apologetic
tone of voice. “Probably he was the kitchen cat and the cook’s pet,
because he isn’t a fancy breed like those parlor cats. When the cook
cast him off he lost his liking for women.”
“I don’t want to see the old turncoat,” said Bridget disdainfully.
“Come on, Virtue Ann;” and she twitched herself to a little distance,
leaving the two children with the sergeant.
“You want to see the king, don’t you?” the sergeant asked Eugene
pointedly.
The boy had been listening in a half-hearted way; but at this question
he roused himself and said, “Certainly, sir.”
The sergeant gave a long, low whistle; and presently there was a
rustling heard behind them, and a prosperous-looking white cat spotted
with black came, yawning and stretching himself, through the underbrush.
“Good-morning, Boozy,” said the sergeant, as the animal, with the
appearance of the greatest delight, sprang on the parapet of the
bridge, and purringly stretched himself out toward his friend.
“He is very jealous, is Boozy,” said the sergeant kindly, rubbing the
cat’s head. “Don’t come any nearer, little miss. He don’t like to
see strangers with me, and he is shy of everything now. He wouldn’t
come near me for a while after the park uniform was changed from gray to
blue.”
“He caresses you because you feed him,” said Eugene, with a side glance
at the animal, who had stretched himself on his back, and was playfully
biting and patting the sergeant’s hand.
“You don’t enter into the animal’s feelings at all,” said the
sergeant benevolently. “You don’t think that there is a little heart
inside that furry body—that it grew sick and sad when it was shut out
from its home.”
“I do not comprehend in the least,” said Eugene in his most grown-up
fashion. “A cat cannot suffer.”
“Perhaps some day you will understand,” said the sergeant kindly. “In
the meantime let me tell you something that will prove to you that
the cat does like me. Some months ago I was transferred to the Public
Garden; and this cat, that would not come out of these bushes for a
stranger, not if he was to whistle till doomsday, braved the racket of
the streets, and, what was worse to him, the people, and went down
there to find me.”
“The sweet little pussy!” squealed Virgie. “Mister Policeman, let me
stroke him.”
“Yes; but come gently,” said the sergeant.
Virgie, however, made a delighted run, that sent the cat flying into
the underbrush.
The sergeant looked amused and went on. “I didn’t know what to make of
it when I looked down, and saw the king purring with joy, and rubbing
himself against my legs. I said, ‘Boozy, go back to the Fens; this is
no place for a cat, and maybe I’ll be sent there by and by.’”
“Did he return?” asked Eugene.
“Yes; he came straight back here; and I begged for an exchange, and
here I found him on the lookout for me when I was sent back. Don’t
fret, little miss; you can see the king another day. I will try to call
up his chum for you,” and he whistled again. Boozy’s chum, however, did
not come.
“He is probably hunting,” said the sergeant. “He and Boozy between
them keep this end of the park clean, and do good service to the city
of Boston. They know all the holes of the mice and moles that would
destroy the plants, and many a morning bright and early have I seen
those two cats watching beside them. They catch sparrows too; smart
isn’t the word for them; and the other day Boozy tackled an eel.”
“An eel,” said Eugene, who was beginning to get interested; “one of
those creatures parallel to a snake that lives in the water?”
“The same,” said the sergeant, chuckling. “The king got mad with the
eel because he wouldn’t submit quietly to being killed, but wound
himself tightly round his body. Boozy was surprised that the eel would
dare to meddle with him, the king of the park; and he bit the life out
of him in two minutes.”
“I have read,” said Eugene, “that cats dislike water.”
“They mostly do,” said the sergeant. “We have an old thing, though,
down below that comes in every morning as wet as a seal from fishing.
But she doesn’t dare to come up here. Boozy would box her ears, and
send her home. This part of the park belongs to him and his chum. He
makes the other twenty cats keep to their own end of it.”
“He is a naughty pussy to box the ears of the other pussies,” said
Virgie warmly.
“You must remember, little miss, that human beings have been a bit
rough on Boozy,” said the sergeant with a mischievous twinkle in his
eye, “and he has learned some bad habits from them.”
“Does the cat live here in winter?” asked Eugene.
“Oh, yes! he doesn’t mind the change of seasons. We shovel about twenty
feet of path for him, and clear the snow from the parapet so he can lie
in the sun. Then I’m a little particular about his food—you haven’t
seen his dining-room;” and he pointed to a sheltered nook where sheets
of brown paper overspread the ground. “Come around any day at 1.30, and
you’ll see King Boozy at dinner.”
“We’ll come running and jumping to see the sweet pussy,” said Virgie.
“I’ll go ask Bridget not to forget me about it;” and she ran away in
the direction of the nurses.
“Where are these other cats that you speak of?” asked Eugene with
affected indifference.
“Oh! you’re beginning to get interested, are you,” said the sergeant.
“I’ll show them to you some other day. I must go now, and find out what
those fellows are doing in that boat on the pond. Good-by, Boozy;”
and waving his hand to the cat, that he knew was staring at him from
some secluded nook, he was about to hurry away from the lad, when he
remembered something, and turned on his heel. “Before I go,” he said,
“let me tell you, young boy, that I know what your grandfather does.”
“Did you presume to force inquiries,” said the lad quickly, “when I
assured you that I should tell you myself?”
“No; I did not. I happened to remember that I had seen some one
answering to the description of what I’d suppose your grandfather to
be like in a French jeweller’s shop on Washington Street. He mends
watches, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” scarcely breathed the boy, with an agonized blush.
“I wouldn’t feel bad about it, if I were you,” said the sergeant
compassionately. “That’s a decent way of getting a living.”
“For you, yes,” said the boy mournfully; “for a de Vargas, no;” and
dropping his young head on his breast, he walked away.